George Cheese was said to be ‘over the moon’ when he got the job at Audi.
Photograph: INS News Agency

An apprentice Audi mechanic hanged himself after he was verbally abused, beaten and locked in a cage by colleagues, an inquest has heard.

On 9 April 2015, six months after George Cheese, 18, began working for the carmaker, his father saw him walk downstairs wearing a rucksack. Keith Cheese told the inquest he thought his son had taken the dog out, but a few hours later he and his wife heard sirens.

They rushed outside to find their son had killed himself close to a public footpath connecting to their street, the inquest heard. He had been found by a neighbour.

Keith Cheese told the Berkshire coroner, Peter Bedford, that he would never forgive himself for missing the warning signs leading to his son’s death. The night before, he said, George had been pacing around the house, repeating: “I have to quit, I can’t go back there.”

He also said George had approached him and tried to start a conversation the day he killed himself. But he had been engrossed in a televised golf tournament and did not respond.

George’s parents told the inquest in Reading that their son was “over the moon” when he got the job at Audi. He had enlisted as an army mechanic in 2014, but was forced to quit the military after suffering stress fractures in both legs. The Audi job had been his hope that he could follow his dream.

But he soon started coming home covered with bruises, and with holes burned into his clothes, his parents said. On one occasion, the coroner heard, George told told them his colleagues had locked him in a cage at the garage by force, doused him in a flammable liquid and set him on fire.

Cheese told his son not to resign from his job and that things would get better. He now realised how “ridiculous” this response was, he said.

George’s mother, Purdy Cheese, said she had been aware of the decline in her son’s mental health for several months. His GP had prescribed him Fluoxetine, an antidepressant, which she had reminded him to take regularly until the final few days of his life, when she had fallen ill.

She added that in the final months of his life, the verbal abuse from his colleagues had cut much deeper than his physical injuries. She said that he had arrived at work one morning to be greeted by his manager: “Oh, so you are alive after all.”

As his mental illness became known around his workplace, his mother said comments such as “take your happy pills George, you’re going to need them” became a regular occurrence. When George complained to his manager about the abuse, she said the man had replied: “Those naughty boys, I have told them about this.”

The coroner was told that no action was taken after George reported the problem and he had later told his mother that his boss had seen him the day he got locked in the cage and had reacted by laughing and walking away.

George had twice tried to overdose on Fluoxetine, a mild antidepressant, but Purdy Cheese said she did not believe George wanted to die on those occasions. Rather, she believed, he saw the overdoses as a way out of going to work.

George’s father told the inquest that in hindsight he realised he had dismissed his son’s claims when he told him he suffered from depression and admitted he had underestimated George’s struggle.

The inquest continues.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.